


Thirteen

by minkmix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Abduction, Other, Torture, dean!peril
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-27
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2019-04-28 17:20:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14454105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: An unnatural kind of serial killer decides to make Hunters its victim of choice.





	1. Thirteen

He was aware that he had been alive for well over two hundred and fifty years, but if he were ever asked to provide an exact natal date he would have little to offer but a guess.

As it was it helped his cause tremendously that his body appeared as worn and feeble as its years would indicate. His immense height was stooped from bones drawn upright past their allotted time. Inflamed joints hindered the once smooth gait of his walk and burdened his misshapen frame with a slow awkward vigilance. Regardless of his alarming appearance, very few paid him any mind. The very elderly were treated with a disregard throughout the public world that he found worked better than true invisibility. Although sinew and muscle stretched tight under his frail skin, and wisps of white hair fluttered down over the gray flop of his eyebrows, he didn’t feel at all that his potency had flagged one bit.

In fact, he’d felt better than fine for as long as he could remember.

Tossing another log onto the fire, he watched the dying flames spring back to life as they hungrily found fresh split pine. Using the stone fireplace to help himself up, he nudged aside a thick silk curtain of cobwebs that hung over the mantle in place of a nostalgic painting. Easing back into his chair, he listened to the cold splatter of rain thudding on the windowpanes and thundering through the rusted gutters. The water blurred the smudged glass to perfectly opaque. He enjoyed how the weather took him further away from the world even though the surrounding woods already kept him miles from the closest road.

Arranging the objects on the messy desk, he found his writing implement, a neat stack of ledgers and a small ceramic ink well.

The anomalous span of his protracted years hadn’t left him all that affected. The strings of meandering decades felt more like months, the century’s horrors flashed on headlines in a steady flow of outside noise that rarely concerned him. Like his mind, his might was hidden away. Still pointed, still lethal and still observing everything that happened around him with the gentle cloudy eyes of what society deemed harmless.

A ragged groan from the corner caught his attention.

Looked like someone was waking up.

“Good morning,” he ventured.

Getting back on his feet he was a little surprised it had taken this long for the young man to come to. The boy hadn’t been placed in the most comfortable of circumstances and judging from past guests, there usually was more of a fuss by now about the state of accommodation. Although the ‘kid’ was obviously past adolescence and well into adulthood he still looked like nothing but a child to him. To a person of his strangely advanced years, anyone not hunched over with a head of white hair might as well been born last week.

He’d removed the thick leather jacket and heavy flannel shirt from the kid’s body before securing everything into place. The large crackling fire got roasting enough in here that even his unreliable circulation proved adequate. As he got closer he noted that even naked to the waist, a healthy young guy like this one was already sweating in the stifling heat. The light was flickering orange from the flames and wavering on the ceilings from the fat sag of candles sitting in rows on the sealed windows and cluttered tables.

“Time to wake up,” he slid a hand onto the back of the boy’s damp neck. “How’re you feeling?”

Kneeling at the young man’s side, he placed his gnarled hand against the bowed forehead. The kid jerked under the touch, his eyes blinking open and blearily trying to focus. With a calm patience, he watched the confused gaze start to swiftly seep into anger.

“Wh-wha...,” the kid stammered. “What…”

Removing his hand, he studied the swollen knuckles and blue veins that ran down his bony fingers. His touch had always made others physically weaker. At a minimum the direct contact of his hand caused only a vague weariness. At its height it caused a great deal more which sometimes created compliancy when required. Consequently, the act always made him feel quite different himself. It left him stronger, sharper and pleasantly awake. He didn’t understand the science behind his longevity but he would be a fool to think this talent didn’t have something to do with the extraordinary extension of his unnatural lifespan.

Flexing his fist, he tipped the chin up so he could look into the furious green eyes.

“What’s your name son?”

The failing struggle to suppress the panic at his current circumstances made him appear a bit younger than his years. Fear had the tendency to make grown ups look as lost as children. The wallet in the jean back pocket had several different identities but he was certain that none of that information was real.

“Forgot,” the kid muttered at the ground.

There was one foot of chain on a collar to keep the boy’s chin down towards the floor. Slumped forward on his knees, his wrists were laced behind his back with another length of corded twine lashed taut to a bolt fastened on the ceiling. It was a method of containment he’d used for more years than he could count. The overall effect left the prey in a posture of constant and enforced attention. The upward tension on the arms kept the kid from collapsing face first on the floor like he wanted to, and the short leash of the collar denied relief to all the strained muscles of the body that twitched in the need to straighten.

He wrapped his fist into the short chain under the boy’s chin and tugged on it gently.

“Why don’t you give it some more thought?”

The young man hissed in shock as the rope holding back his arms creaked tight between his shoulder blades. The grit on the wood planks scratched under ripped denim knees as he struggled to push himself back. All he wanted to do was reach a position to alleviate the steady pressure that had the potential to dislocate both his shoulders. He could have told the boy not to bother trying to make it feel better. The comfy spot he was hoping to find didn’t exist.

“I can promise you that whatever you tell me won’t leave this room.”

The light caught and glinted on something hanging from the kid’s neck.

He examined the metal amulet that clicked against the collar’s chain. Snapping the leather cord, he dropped the small weight of the jewelry into a frayed shirt pocket. The kid watched him do it, his jaw clenched and breath short as the slow pull on the collar turned the discomfort into agony.

“Besides,” he reasoned. “A name isn’t much of a secret now is it?”

Although he had never experienced the excruciating system of ropes and chain himself, the procedure achieved several things that were very important for his work. It was difficult to remain proud when you were forced to stay on your knees. It was even harder to try to think about bravery when the edge of suffering never went away. Most importantly it kept a deadly animal like a hunter safely contained.

“Not a secret I reckon is worth this much.”

He tightened his grip on the chain and yanked down as hard as he was able. Slowly bringing the boy’s chin to the ground, the ropes whined above them in protest. All the kid’s weight went to his shoulders as his knees pressed harder into the floor. Twisting his wrists in the cinched binds, he hissed as his arms were pulled further away from his back.

“Fuck- okay- okay!”

The hunter moaned in relief when the chain’s meager slack was suddenly released. Adrenaline shuddered through his body and made his voice shake as badly as his trapped hands. Sweat had darkened his brown hair, rolling down his temples and gathering to drip from under his lower lip. He licked at it as he tried to get his frantic breathing back under control.

“I-Its Dean,” he breathed out. “...n-name’s Dean—”

The dazed boy revived violently when a hand pushed over his mouth.

Through trial and error he’d learned that covering any portion of the face with his palms made his prey the weakest in the fastest amount of time. He knew it was dangerous to allow the contact of his flesh to linger after he’d made their consciousness ebb and their bodies wilt. A prolonged touch would cause a heartbeat to falter and eventually fade away completely. Dean’s face sagged into his open hand as the labored breathing slowed. His watering eyes flickered but struggled to remain open.

With an elated sigh, he stood back up and settled into his chair.

Like many who had reached their golden years, he had taken up a hobby he’d thoroughly enjoyed in his earlier days. Like a retired man who had much more time to indulge a previously minor passion, he now had the resources to reconstruct his pastime into a new full time job. He found his progression no different from the other beings that sweat and toiled on the planet. Everyone he saw seemed to be squandering their youth in order to enjoy some bliss in the scant years left before they died. Even so, he wasn’t very concerned with the monetary or the other pleasures that could be gained with its excess.

He was interested in something else.

Human life specifically.

The brief fleeting nature of mortality was a source of endless absorption for him. It had really begun to draw his attention when the individuals he knew all his life had started to wink out. When they were all gone he resignedly waited for the time when all his own organs would begin the horrifying process of decline. Instead, his body inexplicably kept functioning on and on. After an entire generation of people he knew had vanished into the ether he found the transitory nature of others to be as irresistible as the scent of food to a starving man. At first he just meant to observe it, but the excitement of being a voyeur quickly proved not to be nearly enough. Early in his endeavors he had found that any death of his own making would do. A diseased vagrant he smothered on the streets was as beautiful a passing to behold as the suffocation of a healthy child.

However, after a few decades he became bored with that pursuit as well.

Lives were as common as gold and as heavy to keep.

With his finely honed art wavering on the precipice of mediocrity, he longed for a master to bow to. He fervently wished every day that there was a teacher of some kind that could further his skills and expand his gifts. With no other option he began to spend his nights and days in libraries to pour through what had been archived of all the world’s great massacres. The feats of his forefathers were impressive but slaughter in mass volume held little interest for him. Instead, he began to read books that explored the higher breed of soul that belonged to the collector. It was during his education on the professional murderer that he learned that the selector of lives was an even more concise and elaborate art form than he’d ever previously considered.

Some serial killers were searching the streets for a person to apply their precious method. Others found the method incidental to the precisely chosen person. The more selective, the higher the return when you finally found what it was that you were looking for. It was an astounding revelation to discover that what he truly wanted was simply something no one else had.

The trick was to find something so rare that its existence was questionable.

It was then that he discovered a type of man he had not been aware of before.

He was rightfully doubtful when he read mention of the reality of Hunters. Nonetheless, his mind was abruptly changed when several of their kind threatened to rip away his invaluable invisibility after a particularly grisly killing spree he had created in a lonely Midwest town. These elusive men weren’t cautious like the police. They followed no rules like the government detectives. Their recourses for information and tracking seemed as expansive and organized than any legitimate government agency he’d dealt with to date.

They had begun to fascinate him.

He immediately started arranging bizarre murders like special bouquets of flowers just in the hopes that the acts would be noticed. Hunters that could be found exposed in the broad light of day were like a gift. Every time he happened upon one it was like tipping up a forest stone and finding something curled in the damp soil in the dark. Great care had to be taken not to startle them or they would vanish back into the shadows like the ghosts they sought. It was vital not to make them suspect the presence of another predator on the wind or the chase would turn backwards into an offensive attack. The men and women who trolled the flip side were meticulous and strong willed. They fled law of every kind and avoided all of society’s structure in order to accomplish their goals. Like him, they lived just outside the living world’s peripheral vision.

He lived to subdue them one by one.

Behind him, the chain on the collar rattled as the hunter roughly tested the binds.

He’d been extremely lucky this time. There was not only one, but two of them bedded down within the city limits. The motel they had taken for the night was surrounded by the city squalor and left mostly vacant behind a gravel parking lot. Its squat building walls were peeling grey paint in all the decomposing shades of a wasp nest.

In his haste to obtain the first unarmed hunter he saw, the other one unfortunately made things difficult. That was the danger and thrill of happening upon these men when they formed in packs of their own making. The prize was increased by the delicious menace the presence of two could contain. The victory of capturing them both could have been ideal but now, here in the serene quiet of the fireplace and his home, the entire experience would be another fond what-if story to recall in his ever crowding memory. One liver spotted hand absently touched the remnants of wounds all over his chest. Buckshot gouged deep and others formed pitted scars. His shirt was almost completely shredded by the multiple impacts of hot lead. Truth be told, if he hadn’t finally taken up a gun himself he wasn’t quite sure he would have been able to acquire even one of the pair.

Dipping his quill into the pot of ink, he contritely shook his head.

Unfortunately in this business there were some that simply got away. He found that in the face of defeat that it was better to look on the positive side of things and now he possessed the helpful knowledge that there was at least one other hunter in the area.

Despite that temporary loss, the outing had not been a failure in any sense of the term.

He flipped open a yellowed ledger and found an unfilled page. With a smile he found that he was going to have to start a brand new entry for this hunter. Filling in the first row with neat cursive script, he satisfied himself with announcing what number this young man would hold in the collection.

“You are number 13.”

“N-Number 13 of what?”

He always made sure the floor was perfect before he secured any human being in place. While his efforts were predominantly for the coveted light they contained inside their skins he kept many other things he found on their person as well. He was in love with their artifacts, charming useless things they thought would aid them. The wood planked floor was a mosaic of mismatched blades, well worn pistols and the dark gleam of polished crucifixes. Placed perfectly like a puzzle, he’d unfolded leather tomes to fit in the wide places and draped clothing in others. Watches, protective necklaces, charmed bracelets, blessed trinkets of all shapes and sizes.

Long ago he’d learned that after he placed his hands on living skin that he could draw out the energy that burned inside. He’d learned that he could maim. He learned he could suck out the very last breath. To his interest he found he could do more than that when he tried.

It turned out that life was not all a human being had to give.

He received something else even after all signs of living were gone. It was more prized than any final stutter of the heart, murmured word or tightening of a hand over his own. He was a collector, but not a collector of putrefying carcasses despite the delightful tokens they left behind.

Opening one of his larger books, he traced his fingers down the bent binding. There lay an intricate inked picture depicting the cross section of the human body. The most cherished possession he desired from the hunter typically had to be given freely or imparted in a clause of a contract. It was an ancient pact-- no one ever got something for nothing. But years upon years of extensive study had eventually exhumed a loophole.

He’d found a way. A bloody, slow, arduous way.

The crinkled vellum smoothed under his fingers as he touched the precise symbols and designs that decorated the body on the pages. Like any act of defiance, you had to decide for yourself if it was worth the price. He hungrily gripped a pot of indigo ink that matched the tint of the paint of the artwork that ornamented the man in the illustration. The next part of the process would take a few more days of painstaking work. He lifted his gaze to the blank canvas of the young hunter’s back and the bare skin of his arms and throat. The small paintbrush required to achieve the fine detail would make his old hands ache and cramp but his efforts had yielded success every time he had dared attempt it.

“What the hell do you want?” the boy made it a demand no matter how weak his voice had gotten.

He liked that question. It demonstrated the intelligence of his catch. It proved he hadn’t wasted his time tracking this hunter down and bringing him to this place. The impending event of his death was obvious but it was clearly evident that he had been brought into seclusion for something other than having his throat mindlessly slashed.

“I’m going to take your life,” he explained.

“Yeah, I think I got that memo—“

“And then I’m going to take your soul.”

He’d heard many responses to that declaration over the years and they were all different. Most gave him nothing but disbelief and a confirmation of their certainty that their captor was missing his sanity. What pleased him about the hunters was that they exhibited real fear when average citizens had the luxury of believing such a claim as a fantastical impossibility. Nonetheless, of all the pleas, shouts and tears he’d witnessed, he’d never before seen this.

The sound of the dry rasping laughter caused his contented smile to dissolve.

He stared at the hunter and felt a film of displeasure descend over the good mood he’d spent so long meticulously crafting for this moment. When the boy’s weary mirth finally subsided, he felt a frown deepen until its points met his drooping chin. The humor that had pleasantly filled him with anticipation was gone. He suddenly felt as cold and heavy as if he were nothing but a bared skeleton, his skin near rot as it hung like a bag from his decrepit frame.

The calm of his anger flashed across his wan face as effortlessly as happiness had.

“Am I missing a good joke son?”

The young hunter painfully re positioned his knees and worked his fists behind him. With a brief shake of his head, he managed to shrug in his restraints.

“Guess we’ll find out.”

 

tbc


	2. part 2

Over the decades, he’d been obliged to exercise a little creativity over his task.

No human being was created alike thus none could ever be undone in the same means. Although the period of learning had long since ended, he never ceased to marvel at mankind’s ability to offer something new. The discovery of another nuance of humanity’s deviation flowed into the hollow well of his skull and brought echoes of fulfillment. He was ages done with the insubstantial pleasures of bodily gratification. Food no longer needed to be eaten. The gentle smile of a comely female no longer aroused him. He barely retained the faintest memory of his own urges let alone the needs of another.

Reaching under his shirt, he scraped his fingertips into the bloodless wounds that covered his torso. Easing out another piece of buckshot that had been embedded in his flesh, he dropped it like a pebble to the ground. Ever since the hunters had riddled him with their bullets he had withstood the dull anguish of his body’s slow rejection of the foreign matter. This membrane that covered his frame now only adequately harbored pain. To achieve any other sensation outside of his apathy he immersed his clotting mind into his pursuits.

Like a connoisseur, he had become an expert at the appraisal of souls. Each had a quality he alone could distinguish and assess, like wine over the tongue. Clarity and strength were desirable. Even the rough imperfections, the scratches and bruises deepened the flavor.

The harvest was all his joy.

He could have the coffers overflow with the purity of newborns if he desired it; raw green like the buds of flowers and with little substance. The clean glare of the rigidly devout was equally as alluring and almost as simple to reap. To find handfuls of nothing but foul rot, he needed only wander the midnight streets. The dull succinct rainbow of the spirit held no wonder for a man who knew of the possibility of the truly exotic.

That was why he preferred the brilliantly muddled makeup of the Hunter. All of them wore the masks of executioners, saviors, believers and doubters. Every facet of the human condition, noble and vile, glimmered dark and bright on their insides all at once.

The young man’s glazed eyes blinked uncertainly from his kneel on the floor when the front door banged shut. The chain rattled when he jerked away from what was dropped onto the ground before him. There hadn’t been much to collect from the battered old pickup parked in the mud behind the decrepit farmhouse. The flatbed of the aging vehicle contained what few spoils there were to be found in the motel room the previous night. It was a regrettable happenstance that the only items for keeping were limited to what the hunter had on his person at the time. But considering what chaos went into subduing his prize, he suspected he ought to be grateful for even that much.

Leaning down, he spread the leather jacket and green flannel shirt on the floor, making sure to place the wallet and ornaments along next to it. The thin wicked blade he had discovered strapped to the boy’s ankle was arranged neatly between the necklace and thick silver ring. Waiting for the evening to finish and the night to begin, he had decided to occupy himself with preparations. There was no doubt that if he were to go astray in his work a catastrophe would ensue. The blistering magic he employed was an ancient and volatile thing. He did not own it or harness it. He need only ask its permission.

Dean stirred in his bonds and grimaced.

“I should let ya know,” his gaze moved skeptically over the scattered belongings. "I've been to weird."

As he considered the words, he studied the fine muscle tremors that had ran through the shoulders. Cramped thighs shook from the duration of his constrainment, and his body was racked with chills despite the sweat beaded on his skin. In exhaustion, his knees had slowly spread further apart which only made the rope above become more and more unforgiving.

The hunter managed a pained grin.

"Y-You'll have to do a little better than this if you want your own HBO documentary."

The warm smile he returned drained the cockiness from the boy's face.

"Shhhhh."

A single touch of his forefinger and the green eyes lost their hard glint, his chin falling limply once again against his chest.

The defiant mockery disagreed with him but it would be foolish to waste energy on something as trifling as rage. He forced his eager hands to busy themselves with the personal effects until the clock struck the prerequisite hour. Now the priming could begin. It was always difficult to pick and choose but a collector learned how to select the most remarkable from the lot. An etched Zippo he found in the jacket was immediately put aside as was the curious necklace he’d found around the boy’s neck. He’d also kept a ring from the hunter’s hand and a small laminated prayer card to St. Michael that he found in the leather wallet. He agonized over several other items before he decided what to keep and what he would later bury.

His search through the various forms of identification brought him the other half of his guest’s name.

Placing his finger under the entry in the ledger, he slowly added the word: Winchester to the other diligently placed notes. Besides broken weapons and worn property, the journal entries were the only physical evidence of his claims. There was no horde beneath the floorboards, no treasure trove behind the dry wall. Nothing was lying locked under a moth eaten carpet in the silent attic above. A broad hand rubbed his chest to feel the strong and steady thud of his aged heart.

His finds were kept where only he could touch them again.

It sickened him to think of his private collection ever being available for anyone else’s consumption. It reminded him of priceless paintings mounted for all to gape at in crowded public museums. As soon as the miserly owner was no longer able to sequester their personal masterpieces away, the filthy masses pounced upon it as if each and every one had a right to view such sanctity.

Closing the book, he set it aside and felt around his belt for the tool he kept. Drawing it out of its long leather sheath, he admired the polished edge in the warm firelight.

His timing was appropriate. The boy had begun to regain himself. Fear was shadowed by outrage at the sight of the blade. The indignity of being bled like a trussed animal in a barnyard seemed to infuriate the hunter more than the approach of his death. It pleased him that the hunter was offended at the thought of such an end.

His intentions, however, were different.

“Be very still, he whispered.

It only took a few seconds to saw through the taut rope.

The boy choked as he tried not to whimper, finally able to slump forward to the floor. Grinding his forehead into the ground, he bit back his pain with angry growls as the blood flooded back into numb arms and hands. He heaved himself over onto his side, the short reach of the chain allowing him to lie down and take the weight off his skinned knees.

“Aw, fuck...,” Eyes squeezed closed, Dean weakly rocked on his side as his muscles seized into knots. “Goddamit.”

The curses he breathed were impotent and almost charming. This hunter would not reduce himself with pleading, not yet anyway.

Letting him alone for a moment, he turned his attention to the largest oak table in the room. Now cleared of the teetering piles of books and clutter that amassed on every bare surface of his neglected home, he dragged it away from the wall. With some effort he pushed the heavy slab across the floor. His work now demanded light. Closest to the fire and directly below the candelabra filled with new candles that would burn to their wicks.

Relocating the hunter would not be very troublesome.

The boy was enraged but spent, his cramping muscles as useless as if the binds were still in place. Any struggle he made now would be as ineffectual as his deflated threats. Undoing the tight buckles on the collar, he smoothed a hand over the chafed red skin beneath it before he rolled the hunter onto his back. Dean resisted when a spindly arm firm as an iron bar slipped behind his shoulders and under his knees. The boy twisted violently in his grasp, a lumbering hindrance that nearly sent them both crashing to the floor. They both gasped as the body was roughly slammed onto the table’s hard surface, knocking the wind out of him. Dean laid panting and bucking under the grip, staring up at him with fury in his gaze.

He frowned at this unexpected struggle. He could not restrain his catch any further without causing more harm. The job ahead required the boy to be as silent and sedentary as a waiting canvas. Any error in application would be disastrous.

The body under his hands tensed when he paused.

“D-don’t touch...m-me..." Dean’s jaw shook.

The usual methods were useless with this one.

Taking a deep breath, he brushed his hands together before gently laying them into place. It was a delicate thing to produce, these small deaths. Sometimes it was as easy and mundane as sleep. Deprive them of food for a few days and some simply stopped caring. It took so little. One palm pressed over the mouth, stifling the hot breath beneath. The other came to rest above the center of the chest. The rush of usurped energy was immediate. His victim writhed under his touch and he fought a rush of lightheadedness that made the room tilt nauseatingly on an angle. He counted a full minute before he breathlessly severed himself. Taking an unsteady step backwards, he waited for the unsettling sensation to fade.

All the worrisome resistance was gone.

He could drain Dean’s fight away, but the anger was still in place. When the knife cut the bruised wrists free, the boy’s limbs were as compliant as a corpse as they were placed at his sides. The hands twitched on the table’s surface but did not rise. When the hunter struggled to speak, his speech was slurred, eyes half mast and trance-like.

He smoothed the damp hair from the kid’s forehead and let his flesh linger so as to push him closer to the brink.

“It will soon be over."

“...no...no thanks.”

The hunter would not submit to full sleep so he withdrew his touch. Briefly, he considered completely paralyzing him. At best it would quiet the adrenaline, stifle all consciousness and leave nothing but a cold numb awareness. But meddling there was not always successful. Sometimes they stopped breathing.

He would have to endure then.

The blade sliced neatly through the laces in his boots.

“...shit...shit.” Dean’s eyes watered as he tried to form each word.

Sliding the sharp instrument carefully into the seam of the thick denim, he lifted the cutting edge upwards. He listened to Dean breathe the cheap curse again. The knife hissed neatly through the fabric until he reached the creases of the cloth around the hips. The material at the waist was as tough to hack through as cured leather. The kid kept on softly repeating the swear like a mantra as he stared hard straight up at the ceiling. As he took the knife to the other leg, he listened as the steady litany became fainter and weaker. Although the fire roared in the hearth and the room was boiling with heat, the hunter was shivering on the table when the last of the clothing was removed.

Snapping his fingers before Dean’s blank eyes he was contented to detect a minute reaction. Like a patient not sent down far enough into the oblivion of anesthesia, the hunter was now alert but unable to move. As he turned to a much smaller table where he had arranged the book of markings, he picked up the bottle of ink and the ready brush. The indigo pigment had always been the signature of his industry. Certainly he would be lost without the thorough diagram laid out in the ancient tome. Nonetheless, if the ink were imperfect then all that would come from his labors would be a hollow replication of another man’s skill.

Dean sucked in a breath when the blade slicked across the inside of his wrist. He spoke no words to him. All communication now would come from steel, the deep incision and the pot of ink held below the trickling drip.

The hunter had good blood.

The pot swirling over the open flame crackled and sparked. Wiping the tool delicately on the glass lip, he formed the brush into a fine point. The thick warm fluid mixed well with the other components in the dye. He considered his canvas before he decided where to first touch ink to skin.

He savored this part of the task.

The binding on the inner part, that which made the hunter more than husk, was firm and tough if not slightly frayed at the edges. It would make no difference. The young ones were often tenacious to pry but they were of a dependable stock. Care had to be taken to preserve quality. He attempted to pay no attention to the harsh groans of protest the hunter forced through numbed lips as fine cuts were made. Deeper ones absorbed the pigment like a sponge, staining him on the inside. Even the beds of his fingernails had begun to take the hue.

Dean’s eyes fluttered, head turning weakly from side to side as the fine point etched the paint beneath sensitive flesh. He held the kid gently by the throat to steady the meager struggles as he drew the curving patterns on his cheek, down the hard ridge of his brow and the sculpture of his nose. He felt his fear, understood it. This boy was a predator and his fear was a tenuous thing, an unpreventable reaction he had been taught to control. But hunters came seeking their deaths, found the creatures out in the dark, and knew where to look. This boy knew exactly why to be afraid. Their kind was wonderfully foolish and most difficult to extract the shimmered gauzy thing that flickered in their chests like a fragile wing. Handled too roughly or improperly, it would break; become useless.

Then there was nothing but spoiled meat.

He started, nearly spilling the ink when a shaking hand slipped suddenly over his, Dean’s arm wrenched arduously up to interfere with the gentle maiming of his skin. Calmly, he clenched Dean by the wrist and replaced the arm again at his side. He felt the strong muscles clench and go tight, heard the thrum of Dean’s heart as its beat fluttered in the hollow of his throat.

“…I-I’m gonna kill you…”

He had to smile at that.

It didn't take very much to win his love. And yes, love was necessity if this were to be done exactly right.

A sudden shrill sound startled them both.

Confused, he stumbled backwards looking in every direction for the source of the piercing noise. He quickly realized the shriek was coming from the pile of the hunter’s belongings brought in from his pickup. The source of the racket was in the crumpled leather jacket he had left wadded on the floor along with the other items he had decided to discard.

Slipping the device out of an inside pocket he had missed, he held the tiny portable telephone.

These trinkets were more amusing than fascinating. No one seemed to be without them these days. In his time, the same was said of a firearm. Everyone concealed one for convenience’s sake. He’d seen and heard these plastic annoyances before but he’d never used one. The cool blue display on its back was a strange shade of light that didn’t agree with his eyes. It was too flat and cold. It was made of the chemicals that composed all the artificial illumination that lit up the undersides of the clouds at night. He wondered if the thing had been singing its sharp song all day long out in the cab of the truck.

The hunter on the table roused enough to react to the sound of the small machine in his hand. Small, desperate sounds rose from his throat as his leaden limbs shook.

Its insistent ring kept repeating, the blue square of light on its smooth surface brightening each time. He pulled the thin pieces of metal apart and studied the buttons on its inside. As soon as he started wondering how to turn it off without simply destroying it, he heard a faint and urgent voice. He had activated it somehow. Quickly snapping the metal closed the soft light blinked out. A name and a phone number had appeared on the display.

“Sam,” he stared at the surname that flashed on the tiny screen. “Another Winchester?”

Dean’s hands trembled on the network of ink that decorated his chest.

He had been admittedly disappointed with the loss of the second hunter but he had never once considered that the two could have been related. Never in all his searches had he come across a family. He had never even heard of anything like them. The thought that such a unique find had slipped through his fingers had made him furious. Now that the hunter was alone it wouldn’t be half as interesting or valuable. Slamming his knuckles down into the wood table he felt the surge of frustration flare through his calm.

A sudden thought occurred to him.

“Would you like to talk to Sam Winchester?” he opened the phone again. “I think you would.”

The hunter rolled his head back and forth in wordless agitation.

Before he could worry about how to make the telephone work again, the thing started abruptly ringing again. He had found many hunters to be solitary creatures, evaporating from sight when they were spooked or wounded. There were certainly notions of loyalty amongst their kind, but he hadn’t seen much of it. Their sense of community ended as soon as it became inconvenient. However, surely a blood relation might venture closer to danger no matter how reckless the outcome.

One could always trust certain behavior from Hunters no matter what shade of solider they were on the spectrum. All of them seemed to be extremely fixated on preparing and dealing with their dead properly. It was maybe the only sentimental trait their jumbled ranks had in common.

“Say your goodbyes, Dean.”

He found himself becoming excited to be present for the sharing of a last exchange with family. It was like all of the delectable lasts he would savor from this human being. Things only he would see and hear and that he would share with no one. The phone stopped ringing when he opened it. Knowing that the hunter could not hold it himself, he pressed the machine up to the side of his face like he’d observed others do.

Dean was confused at first by the noise on the other end. His unfocused eyes blinked uncertainly with the slow realization that the sound he was hearing was not a phantom. The voice calling his name was not something he'd conjured in the churning disorder of his head. His glazed eyes widened in a futile hope as he comprehended that the voice was real.

“S-Sammy?”

The far away voice raised in a palpable anxiety.

“...it’s me...” Dean forced each word out from behind the fog.

He felt his eyes burn with delight. He would listen closely and add what precious dialogue he overheard in the ledger.

“...no...listen...”

When he caught up with this other Winchester he would read it aloud to him if he so wished it when his own time came. Impatiently awaiting the faltering banal poetry of a desperate man, he heard instead the silence of concentration. What came after it wasn’t some departing sentiment or anything else as gratifying. It in fact, made no sense at all.

“0611WT.”

Dean was softly repeating the numbers and letters over and over again, his rasping voice barely audible.

He blinked when he comprehended that he had no idea what the string of gibberish meant.

“0611—“

The telephone was tersely snapped closed.

While he did feel special to have been witness to this small intimate parting, the nonsensical phraseology irritated him. Surely this fool could have thought of something better to provide his brother with. Certainly there were superior scraps of fact to use in an effort to save your own life. Tossing the phone back with the jacket, he decided that Dean had used his last moments to verbalize a last will and testament. It was most likely some locker combination or a safe deposit box. The assurance of wealth being passed on was a comfort the dying took all the time.

However, he dearly hoped that the sound of the last wish would help motivate the other hunter.

If this man’s next of kin was foolish as he was, he would come looking for him. His wizened tongue all but moistened at the possibility of two new gems in his collection. Their vessels he would use for medicine, perhaps nourishment if the craving took him. The rest he would leave piled in a tangled embrace as their hot blood drained into the soft wet soil.

The thought of such a lovely and exclusive acquirement made him dizzy with rapture.

The brass bell clock on the wall began to chime the hour.

The tedious rendering was simply an outline so far, the pattern of lines a tracing of the soul’s flowing structure over the corporal skeleton. Embellishments and details would be saved until the end.

“He might not find me...” Dean swallowed.

The brush rattled in the near empty ink well. He decided it was in time for a refilling. Dean flinched when the bandage was ripped from the freshly congealed wound on the tender skin of his wrist.

“...but he’ll find you.”

He finally had to force two fingers between his clenched teeth, into his mouth to deaden his tongue and stop the distraction of half formed words. Dean's eyes rolled back in his head, body finally succumbing to the dark.

Pulling a sheet up over the boy’s body, he certainly hoped the hunter was right.


	3. part 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is another chapter next from Sam's POV.

After living past the allotment of two natural lifespans, his existence had left very little to look forward to.

While happiness depended on the steady flow of his anticipation, he couldn’t help feeling a certain gloom whenever he approached the end. He worked for no higher power and what he culled had no selling price to the common man. The essence of others did not nourish his flesh nor did it enhance to it. The prolonged arc of descent had begun long before he'd learned the consummate art of possession. Although the pinnacle of his labors would produce a thirteenth addition to be secreted away inside his chest, it would also bring the hunt back to its start. There was a gnawing anxiety that the next acquisition would not be as appealing. There was the giddy optimism that the next find would be something wholly different; something he’d never known even to hope for.

He frowned and turned his attention to the body that lay covered under the stained sheet.

Like brothers.

Every good collector knew you never broke up a set.

It had been a very long time since the phone call. While he had not cared for the high-pitched ringing, he nervously expected to hear the noise rip through the peaceful calm again and again. Curious at the silence, he'd retrieved it from the pile of the boy’s clothes and placed it on the desk where he could watch it. When the device remained quiet he imagined the other hunter on the line’s opposite end. He could picture the man advancing closer to his location as inexplicably and stealthily as the signal that had found the telephone. He had spent the hours of the between walking through the rainy woods that surrounded the forgotten shambles of the house. Standing as still as the black shapes of the trees he watched the nearest mountain pass and saw nothing but the occasional rumbling passage of logging trucks. There was no sign of any vehicle slowing to search for the unmarked dirt roads that lead into the forest. Leaving the wind of asphalt behind, he observed his own home for a great while, hearing nothing but the frigid rain drip through the leaves.

He looked grimly out the darkening window.

Hunters did not have need of an address to find what they wanted. The invitation he’d extended by allowing the brothers to speak had appeared to have been discarded. Now with the twilight deepening behind the clouds, there was no evidence that the sibling would arrive to be obtained. He would have to be content with what was already on the table.

Nevertheless, he found himself extraordinarily irked by this particular specimen. It behaved nothing like the rest of the collection had before removing what he wished to keep. Dean did not sleep when demanded unless large hands squeezed over his mouth and eyes so hard that knuckles ached. He’d had to apply the method so often that it on longer refreshed him in turn, but instead began to weigh his limbs heavy with fatigue. Despite all his efforts, the incapacitation never seemed to last as long as he was accustomed to. Several applications of ink had been smeared by an unexpected lurch of a meddlesome hand, causing the fine hone of his concentration to be infuriatingly broken. What was to be an already arduous undertaking turned into an even more tedious chore.

His disposition had dampened like the sputtering flames in the dim hearth. He’d let the fire dwindle as his mood spiraled downwards. The cold crept up through the walls and across the floor as surely as his foul temper spread through his veins.

The room brightened gradually as he relit the candles one by one.

The hunter’s eyes were open when he pulled back the sheet from his face. He wondered if the boy had slept at all while he had been away. More likely he’d denied himself the bliss of the void in favor of staring into the dark. The blue ink that decorated his flesh appeared black with the lack of firelight. The pallor of his skin was stark white against the intricate weave of designs, his breathing a labored wheeze as he forced his sluggish lungs to keep drawing in air. The network of lines and circles strayed and flowed down over his hips and legs. The drawings wound up the belly and chest, uncoiling over the collar bone and stopping to curl like unchecked ivy around his throat.

There was still work left to be done.

Muscles stiffened as his arm was lifted. Dean tried to stifle a groan when the knife slit his wounded wrist again to bring another gush of fresh blood. The recent damage had not had time to begin healing, drying and filling the room with its heavy scent. He dragged a chair closer so he could rest his sore back while the jar slowly filled. Admiring the artwork crusting on the hunter’s forearm, he positioned the wrist firmly so no drop would be wasted on the floor. Dean dully watched the blood run down the sides of the glass like rivets of water. His breath stuttered in his throat as the sheet was peeled away from the wounds that marked his body. Consulting the open books, he propped the diagrams up against the boy’s thigh. Holding an unpainted hand in his own, he turned it over to study the callused palm.

He applied the razor edge of the blade first. Delicate cuts as shallow as carving paper had to be precisely placed. The trembling hand stilled as he began, his own fingers laced between the hunters to prevent the interference of a fist.

“F-funny.”

The sound of the husky voice surprised him. Although Dean’s energy was vanquished, his mind seemed to be present enough for speech. The others usually were lost in sleep by now. By the time they allowed themselves to shut their eyes, they rarely ever opened them again.

“H-Hands,” Dean's tongue worked to moisten cracked lips. “Always hurt the worst.”

Pride brushed his lingering irritation away, and he smiled gently as he made the next small incision.

Of all flesh with unlimited capacity for pain, the hands were strangely the most susceptible. Man’s sensitivity to the touch of silk was as keen as to the bite of metal. It seemed fitting that this hunter chose to voice his pain for this final detail. Among the many arts of fortunetelling he’d come across, Chiromancy was the one that intrigued him the most. The grooves worn into the palm supposedly foretold destiny. The folds that stretched down the center and eventually broke off to either direction towards the wrist were sign posts of doom and salvation. This hunter’s lines were broken over and over again.

The physicians and poets of the ages always proclaimed the human nucleus to be in many places. The third invisible eye at the center of the forehead. The core of the beating heart. The phallus. The womb. However, his books revealed that a man could only give something away in the same manner in which it was received.

The hands were always done last.

When the final brush of dye had been applied over the wounds, he rearranged the hands to rest palms up at the boy’s sides. After making sure each was positioned flawlessly, he withdrew with a quavering exhale of triumph.

"Good." Was all he could say.

“Am I dead yet?”

“No,” he answered. “Not yet.”

His smile grew wider at the perfection of his renderings.

The brush strokes had begun to draw his prize to the surface, like condensation appearing on a water glass. It glowed under the skin, faintly igniting the patterns he’d carefully placed over the shoulders and arms. The soft luminescence trailed in the twisting paths down the hips and legs, flowing back upwards under his jaw and spreading over his face.

“What...,” the hunter could barely breathe. “What-what the hell did you do—“

“It’s very beautiful isn’t it?”

By this phase the flesh was already settled far into agony. The hunter's natural tolerance for suffering had waxed and waned in the time it took for his ministrations to end. He had seen men like this cry like children when the separation began to take them. Elaborate pleading or no, the torment of the impending change was evident. He’d always envisioned their abdomens pulled wide open-- insides gaping while the mind’s fluids still circulated, forcing the senses to take in every detail.

It wasn’t time yet, but he wanted to examine what would be his.

The shimmer of lines were easily disturbed across the skin, brushed into each other like strands of gossamer thread. He swirled them until they moved under his fingers, pulling them like twine, twisting them until they began to rise off the breathing canvas and glisten in the air. Using his forefinger like a spindle he wound the threads up slowly, gathering up the design. The pattern on the hunter’s body constricted as it was pulled taut, eagerness shifting the gentle tug into a savage pull. With a ragged cry, the painted palms twitched into closed fists. He wanted to hold one small piece of it before he owned it completely. He wanted to taste its burn.

As soon as he yanked upwards he knew something was wrong.

The invisible filaments stretched too tightly and arched the boy’s back off the table. Staring down at the glimmering mass in his hands, he blinked in baffled confusion. It roiled and dripped through his fingers as he floundered to maintain his grip. He felt the prize draw back from where it had been wrenched and about to unravel. With a pant of confusion, he hopelessly tried to keep it from disappearing back into the hunter, but it wouldn’t break free.

It was maddeningly close.

He could feel it as he had every other. The radiance of it seared into his hands and flooded the room with a dull smolder like a sun just set. Dread momentarily surged and surpassed all of his simmering ecstasy.

He faltered back one step and attempted to gather his wits.

Difficulties like this had been encountered before. Each being that had been laid out on his table had been different and more than a few had exhibited disquieting discrepancies. Being an expert in the quality of his finds, he immediately recognized an abnormality when he found one.

His aggravation with this hunter rose moderately.

As intelligent as hunters were, they were often very stupid. While they comprehended that there was no such thing as the impossible, they weren’t always smart enough to find themselves a way out. More than once, his efforts had been hindered by claims staked by some other party. It was galling to find someone else’s signature on something that now rightfully belonged to him.

However, he was a professional.

He’d seen mutations of certain varieties housed within the shells of human beings and more besides. He’d had women venomously swear to him that they had no soul to take. He’d listened to men tearfully regale how their soul had been sold already. These pathetic people might as well have declared that they walked with no heart to churn their blood, or spoke with no brain to direct their tongues. No sale was final until the body had been abandoned to rot. His prey’s desperation made them into poor liars, but even if there was some truth to the question of propriety, it was never much of a problem.

A promise made to a devil or a saint made no difference to him.

The hunter shifted under him, throat working in disgust as large shriveled hands lifted a knee to trace the path of the meandering ink. The extraction for what lay shimmering inside the hunter’s vessel required one finishing specification. That last step was the simplest. It didn’t entail much sweat on his part other than torturous wait through the hours of darkness for another dawn to break. Much of his daylight had been already spent watching the road for the other to arrive.

The rest he'd spent digging.

With a stifled grunt, he lifted the hunter off the table. Age had diminished his lumbering frame but it still held most of his strength. The front door swung open noisily on its hinges, and clattered closed behind him. The thin sheet he had draped over the boy’s body didn’t do much against the chill of the early morning dark. Walking through the wet weeds he stopped before he reached the neat rectangular hole he’d cut into the ground.

It had been difficult with the rain and rocky nature of the soil but he had dug a space with enough width to contain a sturdy pine box. He had excavated deep enough that the box would sit safely underground where the taking could carry on uninterrupted. It was possible to rip it free without the messy business of all the digging, but he preferred the ease in which bringing a body near death lent his task. A slow demise was always ideal despite his impatience. Much as he would like to end this boy's tenacious life and be done, outright murder would send that which he craved too far out of his grasp. The soul was at its most vulnerable when it hovered suspended between the realms of heaven and hell. Unanchored, the prize was up for grabs for anyone waiting in ready to take it. The state of half death was also where contracts could be broken as easily as they had been formed.

He had considered many options in the past but live burial was by far the most logical and efficient means. All it required was more strenuous work that made his back twinge, and his shoulders throb.

It was awkward to climb down into the hole with the body, so he laid the hunter on its edge before he got in himself. The sheet was quickly soaked with the fall of rain, the fabric turning translucent and baring the severe relief of the indigo ink underneath. It was a marvel that no dampness could ruin the marks now. The blood and dye that should have colored the sheet with its pigment stayed fast where it has been applied. The hunter was no longer attempting to rein in his fear when he was lowered into the pit. Realization brought his breath to short gasps, his body jerking uncooperatively into the wooden box cradled on the uneven bottom. When his head hit the split planks, he did something none of them had ever done before. Not one of them had ever remained awake this long, but certainly not one of the prior finds had managed to achieve significant motion.

The boy was half way to sitting up, his hands gripping each side of the tight confines. His face was drawn into a weak rage, his fight becoming more desperate as he realized it was useless. It was an easy gesture to smooth the hair back from the sweating forehead and force him backwards. His frantic eyes became duller and the steadfast flicker of his will faded as the consuming touch ate at him. He wanted to tell Dean that no agony could last longer than it could be conceived, but that was an untruth he had no desire to tell. He also wanted to assure the hunter that that sort of cruelty held no interest for a true collector.

Feeling the eyes moving under the closed eyelids, he brushed a fingertip across a swollen lower lip that had been bitten bright red. Whipping the sopping sheet free, he shoved the arms down into the scarce space at the body’s sides. The hammer and nails were sitting next to the dirt caked shovel.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Dean.”

Even after dropping the heavy slat of sealing wood into place, the hunter did not give up on the attempt to free himself. With no room to raise a fist, the body writhed in the limits of its internment. The weak thuds continued even after the hammering had stopped. It went on even as each sopping pile of wet earth was heaped onto its lid. It was a profound satisfaction when the muted sounds were finally obscured.

After he’d packed the mud smooth with the flat of the shovel, he righted himself and took a deep breath. The forest was oddly hushed around him as he trudged back through the tangle of vines and bushes. The cloudy sky above seemed to hold back the drizzle of rain until just an icy mist fell. The dark interior of the house turned his concerns towards rekindling the dying fire. As he fractured branches across a knee, he felt all his worries dissipate with the growing warmth of the crackling flames.

The brief contact with the hunter’s misshapen soul would not leave the circle of his thoughts.

Pushing the troublesome issue of possible hindrances aside, he decided to enjoy his evening. Once he’d completed every word of the rites he would be rewarded as he had every other time. One day from now, he was sure he’d even smile nostalgically about this outlandish addition and the trails he had endured to obtain it. The tribulations would be an entertaining story he could retell himself when the memory of the nuisance had passed.

Soon none of the nonsense of binding contracts would matter anymore. He settled back into a chair and closed his eyes to the chaotic conflagration dancing in the hearth.

At dawn he would cheat them all.

 

 

 

 

 

There was no memory of agreeable dreams or sense of rejuvenation when his eyes opened once again.

The familiar disarray of the living space was exactly as he had left it. The act of slumber provided nothing but a lag in time and a vague discomfort when feeling gradually returned to his bent skeleton. He sometimes used a mattress that had been left behind somewhere on the second floor of the house, but the putrefying box springs had long ago become unnecessary in favor of the seat by the fire.

Before he had drifted off to the sound of the sap hissing and popping in the hearth, he’d taken time to celebrate his approaching triumph. He’d taken a large joy in laying the hunter’s personal belongings out. The items he’d chosen not to toss away were the most excellent of what little there was to be had. The leather jacket was interesting but not as extraordinary as the amulet. A wallet of paper money wasn’t of any consequence compared to the scratched zippo with the blackened wick and worn thumbwheel. It would be a far greater pleasure to designate places to fit the objects in with the others that sat arranged on the floors and walls.

He was nauseous with excitement when he opened his door.

The path through the woods seemed clear and vivid despite the gloom of the gentle gray storm that billowed overhead. His gaze fell onto the litter of rusty junk that sat scattered amongst the undergrowth. There was debris left over from the area that had once been used for farmland. The tipped wheels of an antiquated tractor stuck out of the tall weeds out in the midst of other decayed equipment. There was even an old open well sitting somewhere in the withered wild flowers for any passerby to stumble into its rocky depths. The previous owners of the derelict farm had also left several cars to corrode between the trees.

One of them had a license plate still attached by one bolt to its dented fender. The numbers and letters on it were still visible through a thick layer of green mold.

0611WT

Hunters.

If they couldn’t find a way out of the mazes of their own making, they were always looking for a trail of crumbs no matter who left it behind. He wondered how Dean had had time to notice the old set of plates, let alone memorize its information in the dark trip from the pickup to his threshold. Parting the dripping branches, he shook his head in a begrudging fondness for the boy’s fortitude.

The sight of the muddy clearing gave him pause.

The level pile of dirt he’d left the previous night had been disturbed.

Walking closer he found that the surface soil wasn’t just removed. The shallow grave he’d created had been completely unearthed. The pine box on its bottom that he’d left nailed shut was still there. The rain pooled on its sides as if the box had been exposed all morning long. There were sharp gauges across the lid from a tool that had struck across its surface. One side was splintered in pieces from something wedged under to pry it open.

Tossing the lid back, he felt his vision dull and redden in horror.

It was empty.

When he heard the crack of a branch behind him he felt elation despite the dread his intellectual mind rationally provided. He turned slowly to savor the sight he knew he would not have long to absorb.

Another hunter was there standing at the forest edge.

Dirt streaked the broad span of his cheekbones and rain drenched clothes. His gaze locked on his target with the professional candor missing. It was purpose that had driven this hunter out into another predator’s territory, a passion he once might have found enticing, but there was nothing but the keen edge of fear that filled him now. The tall hunter did not speak, only breathed in and out. He could hear the waver of his exhale containing the fury that burned behind his steady gaze.

There would be no demands. Not even a chance to flee. The child before him was shrewd and cunning. The forest floor had been marked, beset with the scrawling shapes of runes that made him gasp and choke as he struggled to lunge forward. The deafening repeat blasts of the shotgun were like powerful blows of a fist. He blindly charged forward, his own ferocity at being denied his prize igniting his wrath. His clumsy gait hurled their bodies through the acrid smoke. Eye to eye, the hunter stared back with gritted teeth as they shook in deadlock. He could feel the heat of blood pounding through feverish skin, the light smoldering inside the boy making his grip harden on the straining arms.

He growled in outrage as his feet slid backwards in the muck.

The crushing grip was too strong. The effects of the wards were too potent and strange. With a cry he was flung backwards onto the ground, his brittle spine and skull cracking against upturned stones and jagged rock. The inconceivable pain silenced his mad shouts, his vision clouded by rainwater as he peered up at the looming figure above him. The promise that blazed behind the hunter’s eyes made even the cold flesh on his bones shudder. There would be no compromises or concessions. Like any prey, you did not attempt to address with what you were about to destroy.

Sam Winchester hefted a rusted bucket from the ground at his side.

He lurched backwards as the deluge hit, the overwhelming reek of gasoline searing his eyes and running into his nose and mouth. He smiled as another wash of liquid splattered against his face. Blinded he felt the edge of the grave behind him crumble as he fell heavily down onto the shattered remains of the box.

The scratch and hiss of the match made him still.

As the exquisite heat rapidly engulfed him, he felt the pleasant warmth of it saturating his skin. Slowly, he crossed his arms over his chest, over what was completely and utterly his. Nothing in the world could part him now from the treasures he loved; what he'd fought so hard to keep. In whatever plain awaited, they would be his comfort. Let the vengeance of the Almighty take him and the entire host of Lucifer feast on his flesh for all time.

As the smoke rose higher, he hoped that the boy could hear his laughter. He knew as his skin blistered and split that what lay within would never wither in any flame no matter how bright or hot it burned. As his phantom shifted sideways into the ether, he hoped the afterlife would not lack what he cherished. While his body crumbled to ashes, he wished for endless horizons in which he was free to reap all the glittering light he wanted.

It would be a very shiny place.

He was sure of it.

-end-


	4. Half Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam is not happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not gonna lie, this story was written before 'Thirteen: part 3' was even finished. XD I'm not proud but my ya-yaz had to be appeased. I wasn't even going to post this random sidedish of indulgence, however so many of you guys seemed to be thinking exactly what I was thinking aka SAM POV PLEASE!!1!!!! So I figured, what the hell, why keep the ya-yaz to myself?   
> It's not a sequel, it's not an epilogue ... it's a step sideways on the insides of 'Thirteen'. It starts and ends in odd places, but I kinda dig it that way. AND, enjoy some Hilarious fan art. https://minkmix.livejournal.com/141255.html  
> -Mink

Sam’s father had always made him repeat things.

Things off the radio. 1-800 numbers off billboards. Even the read back through the static of a drive-thru speaker. The old man would never dole out the pop quizzes with any forewarning. They happened regardless of time, place or energy level. Each time he did it Sam’s mind was forced to bend backwards to remember what it had been peripherally observing beforehand. After years of relentless practice, he was left with an uncanny excellence in the abilities of instant recall. Consequently, when he was deliberately committing a subject to memory his honed recollection was practically photographic. Sam held the phone against his ear long after the signal had been abruptly cut off.

By the time he found a pen to write on the flaked paint of the gas station wall, he already knew what the information was.

It was a license plate number.

“Everything okay?”

The elderly man that manned the station register had wandered out into the gravel parking lot. Sam watched the lighter ignite the cigarette right beside a weather worn sign that thanked you for not smoking. Taking a deep inhale, the guy gave Sam an up and down look.

“I asked if you was okay,” he frowned a little. “You all right, fella?”

Sam automatically tried to smile and wished he hadn’t. “Yeah. Thanks.”

With the sequence burning in his head he started walking quickly to the car.

The absence of a break in the series meant he could instantly discern whether it was a current license. The last run of plates in this state that weren’t broken down into sets of three had all been made over twenty years ago. If Dean had included a break then that meant the plates could be from anywhere.

Sam’s hands settled on the steering wheel as he forced himself to think.

He tried to concentrate on what Dean had told him and not how he had sounded. He had barely understood at first what his brother had been trying to convey, and if it hadn’t kept repeating he wouldn’t have gotten any of it at all. He had to stop himself from interrupting the whisper of his brother with his own panic.

The bored woman that worked the weigh station for the freight trucks coming in through the north told him that there wasn’t anything out west past the interstate route. She said that all the folks that tried to make the mountain terrain into cattle country had all pulled stakes and headed south years ago. A call in to the county police department had told him it would take a while for their one and only clerk to dig up a car registration from that far back. They told him they’d give him a call as soon as they could. It turned out as soon as they could meant three hours.

It was well past midnight by the time Sam hit the interstate again with a destination scribbled on a piece of paper. It wasn’t on the map but that wasn’t a problem.

He had become very good at finding what was hidden in plain sight.

 

 

 

 

 

He found the first one by accident.

Years of searching for unmarked graves by flashlight made the odd mounds on the forest floor obvious. The relocation of soil and the scatter of unearthed rocks were all tell tale signs of interruptions in nature’s own random mess. Circling the area, he’d found several more. Some were older than others. Some were nothing but a strange clearing of the undergrowth and an elongated indentation in the ground. The unprofessional attempts at grave making always left the rectangular furrows. It meant a weak untreated wood had been used and it had rotted away to collapse.

Sliding through the dripping foliage, he let the sound of the rainfall mask his passage. He’d only brought along one pistol and he knew what good it would do him if he was confronted with what he sought. The trouble was that he had no idea what he was dealing with. He knew about a vast variety of unnatural but this thing hadn’t fit the bill of any of the regulars. He also didn’t have the luxury of time to dwell on why. He had to admit, the complete lack of information into this unknown scared him, but he had also been taught how to forcibly set his fears aside. Nonetheless, Sam felt the chill of it seep down his spine as he studied the trail under the weak beam of his light.

Another lesson from their father. In the jungle, he used to say, you could be walking over an entire battalion of hostiles silent and still as moss beneath your feet. You would never know it until you were holding the bleeding solider in front of you. Where there were corpses, there could be whatever had made them. Sam advanced with carefully placed steps.

The graves were not the only thing man made on this secluded mountainside.

The decrepit house looked as old as the police dispatcher had described, and worse for its surrender to the wilds. A gaping hole had caved in one side of its cedar plank roof, and half the windows were left in jagged triangles. As he drew closer he detected a smell he knew too well. It was unmistakable even though it was laced with the forest's wet decay. The house was dark on its crumbling upper floor, but the bottom floor was completely lit up. It was a faint orange flicker that stuttered in all the hollow gaping windows like a paper lantern. Sam recognized the quality of light as something that would come from a well stoked fireplace. Crouching under the brightest of the windows, he slid up carefully to check inside.

The first thing he knew for sure was that Dean was no where present.

The smell hit him again and he fought back the overpowering urge to spit.

It was the odor of something that had long since died and was decomposing in open air. He had smelled it the night before when the thing had gained entrance to their motel, the stench so overwhelming that it made his throat constrict and his eyes sting. From what he could see, the room it was a cluttered and cramped space dominated by a soot blackened hearth roaring with a fire much too large for its cracked brick frame. Moldering books, disintegrating paper, and other indiscernible junk covered every table, chair and surface of the floor. The walls were plastered with more of the same. What appeared to be a tall and gangling human being was in his direct line of sight. It was wearing the same outlandish and old fashioned clothing it had been when he’d last seen it. Draped inelegantly in a stiff backed chair, it sat slumped with its knuckles grazing the planks of the floor. Its broad shoulders and sunken chest were rising and falling in the even cycle of slumber. A sallow emaciated face was tipped onto its knobby shoulder, its pinched features as skeletal in rest as it was sleep. Even from where he hid, he could hear the grating phlegmy expulsions of its intermittent snores.

Sam worked his hand on the pistol in the back of his jeans. He’d seen first hand that shooting at it wouldn’t achieve a whole lot. He removed his grip and ducked back under the window.

He had to find Dean before this thing woke up.

Skirting the house’s perimeter, he came out on the other side and spotted a working pickup truck with fresh mud on its tires. There was another trail leading behind that which led further out into the trees. Sam hurried that way, somehow suspecting this was a path the current owner of this land used often.

As he stepped over the bulky exposed roots of a towering gnarled oak, his flashlight caught something.

Sam stepped closer, unsure of what he was seeing.

It was a pile of shredded fabric. As he knelt down to look closer, he saw it was made of denim. Sam felt a wash of cold when he realized it was a pair of jeans that had been slashed to pieces. There was a flannel shirt that Sam had seen often enough to recognize even laying half submerged in a cloudy brown puddle dotted by the rain. The beam of his flashlight swung and caught the crumpled shape of a once white sheet half twisted in a heap. Beside it all was another mound of earth like the ones he’d found all over. However, this one was as fresh as the earth coating the truck’s tires.

He felt the water soak the knees of his jeans, his hands scraping through the grit and muck with stunned disbelief.

“Dean…”

He hardened his gaze back through the tangle of woods that lead to the house. It had selected this location a reasonable distance from its dwelling. Probably because all the bodies it left were down hill and away from the properties’ well water. Scrambling up off his knees, the flashlight caught a glint of metal resting among the trees.

Stumbling towards the shovel, Sam numbly grabbed its handle.

As the rust-pocked spade scraped and cut into the dirt, he plunged it down into the soil again and again. The frantic motion turned into a blur, each stabbing grind of the shovel falling into the next. When the sharp tip struck the hollow thud of wood, his labor impossibly quickened. He intellectually understood he had to wait until he removed another hundred pounds of wet gravel off the lid before he’d have a remote chance of opening it. He tried to work even faster, doubling his pace without causing the muddy slide of soil to come cascading down again, and obliterating his hard won progress.

Sam fell down onto his knees to clear the last of it, found the edges with his hands and began scooping the sludge away. He thrust the shovel into the flimsy box’s side and wrenched the wood apart with one downwards shove.

Grappling for the flashlight, Sam pointed it down.

He’d always heard how death made people look different. He couldn’t count how many times a traumatized person had described the change. A child, spouse or friend was easily identified by familiar features while the person they knew seemed to be completely absent.

Dean’s skin was the wrong color.

With a growl, Sam yanked the lid further back so he could straddle its edges. His trembling hand went to his brother’s throat, the flesh under his fingertips too cold. Sam felt his vision focus in a surreal clarity as he fumbled for his brother’s pulse. He leaned down like a prayer and briefly pressed his forehead to Dean's, shutting out unwanted truth as it began to solidify into reality.

But as he had often done, Dean saved him from that dreaded place.

Sam made a strained sound of incredulity as he felt the warmth of a sluggish exhale brush his cheek. Sam raised his head, watching in frozen wonder as Dean’s breath created a fragile cloud in front of his mouth. When it happened a second time, he nearly laughed out loud like someone losing his mind.

Dean’s eyes miraculously opened.

Sam’s heart painfully skipped in his chest.

“D-Dean?”

He scraped his knuckles on splintered wood as he forced his hand behind his brother’s neck. The box’s dimensions were made roughly to the proportions of a body with no wasted space. Dean’s head was tilted slightly to the side to fit into the tight confines. Closing his eyes for a second, Sam took a deep breath. Whipping his head to get the wet hair out of his eyes, he lifted the fallen flashlight to get a better look at what condition his brother was in. Before he started yanking him out of the hole in the ground he was going to make sure nothing was broken first. He could hear his own hoarse whisper and the rush of assurances tumbling out of his mouth before he could even think of what he was saying.

“I-It’s going to be okay. You’re okay now. Can you hear me?”

Sam jerked the light back and forth down the length of Dean’s body.

His brother’s chest rose with a deeper inhale, his pale face taking on some color as he gradually surfaced into consciousness. His awareness was rapidly spreading to his other senses, his still body starting to violently shudder with the damp chill. Dean’s dazed eyes locked on the light and the comprehension of someone else’s presence. Sam ground his teeth when his brother let out a weakened moan of fear and attempted to raise his hands in an involuntary gesture of defense.

“It’s fine. It’ll be okay.”

As the shock faded a little, Sam slowly comprehended that Dean was covered in something. Blood he could smell, metallic and sharp. There were brownish stains of it on the unmarked parts of his pallid flesh. In the stark flashlight’s glow he’d initially mistaken it for the splatter of mud. He had dismissed the other dark patterns on his brother’s skin as wet dirt that had seeped through the slats of the wooden crate. Blinking at it in confusion, he tried to wipe clean what he saw on Dean’s chest and stomach. When it wouldn’t easily come away he abruptly realized the strange pattern was deliberate. The sight of it suddenly shoved Sam’s numb astonishment aside and replaced it with horror.

It was ink.

Sam breathlessly pushed his hands across his brother’s face, relieved that the strange marks smeared. He suddenly started madly wiping at all of it, desperately trying to destroy whatever meaning lay in its careful application. He immediately stopped when he saw Dean was staring in bewilderment up into the flashlight with unfocused eyes.  
Sam tried to calm down, his body shaking as badly as the one under him.

“H-Hey?” He worked both hands behind Dean’s shoulders to lift him forward. “Are you with me?”

Sam couldn’t find any breaks or significant wounds. Drawing back his unsteady hand, he stared in confusion at the dissolving maroon stains of blood. Swallowing, he searched Dean again but he couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. He held his brother’s shivering body up slightly against his so he could run a hand over his back. The line of his spine seemed intact and there were no wounds there either.

“Dean?” Sam heard the crack in his voice. “We’re leaving okay?”

Heart pounding, he arranged himself to hoist Dean’s limp weight forward.

Lurching to a stand, Sam searched the muddy grave edge for what do to next. By divine providence the grave hadn’t been dug a regulatory six feet down. It was shallow but still a hole in the ground that required use of the upper body to climb out of. Instead of thinking anymore about it, Sam leaned down to pick his brother up. With one good ungraceful heave and a mumbled apology Dean was mostly top side. Using the propped shovel to brace his boot on, Sam grabbed the flashlight and hoisted himself up alongside him.

“S-Sam?”

Sam clenched his jaw as he struggled out of his jacket. He figured he should be relieved by the slurred sound of his name but Dean had said it like a hopeful guess.

“Yeah,” he rolled his brother into the coat and hurriedly pulled one hand through a sleeve. “It’s me.”

Dean shook as their breath fogged between them.

“Cold.”

“I know.”

Dean flinched in his grip and made a startling pained noise that froze Sam in place. At first he thought he had missed something; overlooked some hidden puncture wound or fractured bone when he’d roughly handled his brother.

However, his attention was drawn to something else.

Sam stared down at the trembling hand he had gripped in his own. The palms of Dean’s hands weren’t just painted, they were minced.

“Wh-what—“ Sam stuttered. “What—“

Dean pulled his wounded hands back, trying to shift his body away. Sam ignored his efforts, taking his hands so he could study them more closely.

“No.” Dean breathed. “Lay off.”

“I have to see. Just let me.”

The dark blue ink had been mixed with something else. Sam urgently scrubbed at the stains on Dean’s arms and legs to reveal nothing but ordinary skin beneath. But not all of the dye came away quite as cleanly. Some of the lines had included incisions that followed the art’s path, shallow as the grave next to them but as numerous and exact as the designs that had been painted all over his body. There were calculated lacerations of varying size, some partially healed, others reddening and inflamed. Some had been made brief and thin, others deeper and curving uninterrupted from abdomen to thigh. They held the strange smoky pigment that bled into his brother's skin, sickeningly like a cruel adornment.

Sam thought of the span of time his brother had been missing and swallowed back a wave of nausea. He released his brother’s hands and pushed them into the soft pockets of the jacket.

“Come on.”

He locked his hands behind Dean and started to pull him up again.

“I can-I can’t—“

“It’s fine. It’s okay.” Sam wondered how many times he could keep saying that before Dean would call his bluff. “I gotcha.”

It had seemed like a long distance when he’d made his way in from the access road. Even carrying the extra weight of his brother, the return trip took no time at all. As the branches whipped at their faces, neither one of them made a sound as they trespassed back through the steep terrain. When they reached the break through the gigantic pines and his boots hit asphalt, Sam almost started laughing in amazement. Releasing Dean, he watched his brother stagger up against the car like the trip had somehow reached its end. Sam swung open the back door and decided that this wasn’t even near a conclusion until they saw a couple of state lines pass by. There were some extra clothes in the back and a few blankets they kept for times they had to camp in the car. Leaving the coat zipped up, he helped his brother get into something dry while trying to avoid Dean’s injured hands as much as possible. Sam wrapped white gauze around his palms before settling him back with the blankets.

Oddly enough, Dean let him do all of it, his weak protestations easily overridden as Sam worked. Looking into his brother’s glassy eyes, he would have said that Dean was simply and utterly exhausted.

Situating him in the backseat, Sam slid into the driver’s side and jammed in the key.

“W-What are you doing?” Dean demanded from the back.

“Leaving.”

“No.”

“Dean, we need to get out of here,” Sam didn’t want a dialogue. “We have to—“

“No,” Dean groaned as he tried to sit up. “No way.”

“Dean.” Sam worked his hand on the ignition.

“This ain’t done.”

He heard the determination in his brother’s voice no matter how strained it sounded.

Sam shut his eyes.

Bullets didn’t do much to the thing but slow it down a little. If there was a verse in the bible or the journal in regards to this interesting new phenomena, Sam didn’t know what it would be. He didn’t exactly have an afternoon in a library to roll the dice trying to figure it out either. Resting his forehead on the wheel, he fought every instinct that told him to ignore his brother’s words and just turn the engine. They could be in another state to work all this out and make sure Dean was really all in one piece.

But this thing wouldn’t still be here when they got back. It would take one look at its dug up hoard and the footprints Sam had left everywhere. The thing would pack up the show and skip town. If Sam didn’t move on it now they might miss their only chance at annihilation of the abomination’s existence. He looked at his brother’s hunched form shivering uncontrollably in the backseat of his own car. His mind instantly began to run through the inventory of the arsenal that currently might be of any use.

Knives might work. Machete. Axe. He didn’t have a chainsaw but he was sure that probably would work effectively if only in short range.

Sam sat back and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes.

His gaze fell on the car’s fuel gauge that was hovering a few degrees above empty.

He didn’t know what silver bullets or a splash of holy water could accomplish, but he had no doubt what some gasoline and a spark would do.

The trunk creaked as he swung it open again. He shouldered a shotgun and packed his shirt pockets with extra shells. For kicks he slung a canteen strap of holy water and slipped a half foot bowie knife through his belt. There were a few other things he was preparing but the rest of his armory was stashed away in a very different kind of munitions store. His mind had as many deadly things to use as the car trunk. Leafing through the annals of his knowledge, he armed himself with cryptograms and wards that affected all forms of living dead. He had no idea if any of them would work but he had enough black magic on file to give it a decent shot. He could leave enough voitile graffiti on the muddy forest floor to make anything that could experience pain regret stepping into his range.

“I’ll be right back.”

“Wait.”

Sam paused, his mind already thirty meters ahead in the dark woods and remembering exactly where he’d seen some old cars. The pickup truck that the thing drove up here in would have plenty of gas in it. Grabbing a length of siphoning tube, he wrapped it around the rest of his gear.

“Get my stuff,” Dean was looking at a hand where a ring usually sat. “All of it.”

Clicking off the flashlight, he tossed it into the driver’s seat. Sam rolled the barrel of a revolver and gingerly placed it into Dean’s maimed grip. He patted his brother’s other hand over a sheathed knife. With those details taken care of, he got ready to stop thinking about anyone else’s survival but his own for the next few hours before sun up. His brother sat back uncomfortably and cocked the gun on his knee. His resolute but faltering gaze held unvoiced frustration that he would not be accompanying Sam on the romp back into the lion’s den.

“Have fun,” Dean told him. “As much as possible.”

Sam felt a half smile come on even though he felt like hundred miles away from one. This was one job that he didn’t feel any abundance of overkill was inappropriate or needlessly brutal.

In fact, it felt just about perfect.


End file.
